Alan Fetterman named Bucks County's first Artist in Residence

Wednesday

Apr 11, 2018 at 1:15 PMApr 11, 2018 at 5:23 PM

Over the next four years, the Central Bucks-based artist will serve as "a strong point person" to promote the arts in Bucks County.

When Bucks County artist Alan Fetterman wants to create a new masterpiece, he starts by going on an exploration with a piece of charcoal, gliding it with ease and precision across a canvas to sketch out a landscape or a portrait he has in mind.

"I call this the bones of the painting," Fetterman said recently at his Gristmill Studio in Doylestown Township. The self-taught artist explained the method he employs with each work as he sketched a lone person walking through a wooded trail. Once finished with the charcoal, the 59-year-old lifelong county resident turns to the massive stacks of oil paint tubes in his studio and picks out a few colors to start painting the canvas so the creation's "life and flesh will come forth."

It's an approach Fetterman has used over the last quarter century since he finished serving in the military and working in the construction industry. The Buckingham resident made a life-changing, inspirational visit to the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, in 1993 and in the process decided to start anew by painting on the streets of downtown Doylestown Borough full time. He quickly found success. "I would sell paintings right off the easels," he said.

Fetterman has created works like "960 Elevation," a landscape of the highest point in Bucks County, which sold for $15,500, and "Spring On Canal," a colorful landscape of the Delaware Canal in Upper Bucks County which sold for $7,500. Many of the works have been sold over the years at one of the 40 one-man shows that Fetterman has curated himself.

Besides his robust body of work, the artist is a founder and coordinator of the county's annual Plein Air Festival, which features artists from around the country working in the open air at various locations throughout the county to paint landscapes and streetscapes. Fetterman's efforts have caught the attention of the Bucks County commissioners, who recently named him the first-ever Bucks County Artist in Residence. He was the only artist in the county considered for the volunteer position, spokesman Christopher Edwards said.

Over the next four years, Fetterman will serve as "a strong point person" to promote the arts in Bucks County, Loughery said. "We are going to put him right to work."

Fetterman's first task will be to figure out where to display an estimated 80 paintings, sculptures and other pieces of artwork that have been donated to the county. The art pieces are in storage in the basement of the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown Borough.

"I bet there is some amazing art that has been tucked away for the last 40 years," Fetterman said. "It's going to be like opening a treasure."

The artist will inventory the treasures over the next several weeks, figure out how to present them and oversee their placement in the county justice center and administration building, as well as on other Bucks County-owned properties.

"This should have happened a long time ago," Fetterman, a married father-of-four, acknowledged.

Once the hidden treasures are on display, the artist said he will look for other ways to help propel the arts, including poetry and prose, in Bucks County.

"I want to be a supportive pillar to all of the arts," he said. "It is a dynamic honor."

Fetterman expects to put in "hundreds of volunteer hours" each year while serving as the Artist in Residence. He says it will be worth it.

"A healthy and bright community allows opportunities for continued growth and goodness," Fetterman said. "Bucks County is such a community. It is steeped with individuals, groups, organizations and leaders who care and strive to elevate the whole. I am grateful to be a part."

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